The Year Of

As an institution of higher education, Moorpark College seeks to facilitate the critical thinking skills of students, faculty, and staff both within and outside of the classroom. Toward this goal, an experiment took place during the 2006-2007 academic year in which the entire year was dedicated to an inquiry into the seemingly divergent approaches taken by science and religion to understand the world. “The Year of Science and Religion” provided opportunities for all members of the college community to acquire strategies and tools for talking about and understanding the relationship between science and religion. Among the guest speakers that appeared during that year were Michael Shermer, founder of The Skeptics Society, Roy Ascott, President of the Planetary Collegium, and William R. Stoeger, staff scientist for the Vatican Observatory Research Group.

Since that initial experiment, a year-long dialogue in understanding has become a Moorpark College tradition. Over the years, the “Year of…” program has provided a framework for looking at the relationship between science and religion, humans and our environments, the relationships between self and society, methods of conflict transformation, and – this year – the connections between humanity and technology. During this Year of Humanity and Technology, we have been hosting events, discussions, activities, and academic explorations of the ways technology and humanity interact, conflict, cross boundaries, create lines of division, interplay, and thus affect one another and our world. The title provides the frame for topics that encourage academic debate as the college aims to consider: